Updated Neuroshima Hex App Coming in September

(Edit: 8/19/21) – Just confirmed with Portal Games on Twitter that the online play will have asynchronous options. Yay!

One of the classic boardgame apps for iOS (and maybe Android? I’m not sure) was Neuroshima Hex, the 1-4 player duel game where each player is a faction in a post-apocalyptic world, placing armies and trying to destroy the headquarters of your opponent on a fairly small hexagonal map.

While it plays up to 4 players, it definitely shines as a 2-player game (though sadly I have only played it on the app).

Let’s blurb the boardgame just to give you an idea of what this is:

“Each player leads one of four armies: Borgo, Hegemonia (Hegemony), Moloch, and Posterunek (Outpost). Each army deck consists of 34 tiles: soldiers, support tiles, and special actions. You win when all enemy headquarters are destroyed or when your headquarters is the least damaged at the end of the game.”

The app, done by Big Daddy Creations, was brilliantly done but it was left to fester as the company had financial issues and I believe they are now defunct. The app was still fun to play but online play against a friend was atrocious and it suffered from other ailments as well.

Recently, within the last couple of years, Portal Games (the original publisher of the boardgame) reacquired the rights to the app and promised that an updated version would be coming.

We waited…and waited…occasionally there was a little bit of news but we were starting to think this might be vaporware.

However, Portal Games and Ignacy Trzewiczek just released a new vlog that states the new version of the game will be coming out in September.

September!

Wow, what a rush.

Here’s the vlog for your own gratification.

Not only is it coming out in September, but they are taking care of their previous customers even though technically we aren’t *their” customers. We are buyers of the original version.

Yes, that’s right.

If you bought the previous app, then this will be a free update for you.

You don’t have to rebuy it!

But wait, there’s more!

The app will come with the base game 4 factions. However, as expansion armies are added to the game, if you owned those armies as well, that will be free for you as well.

The only money you will have to put out is for stuff you didn’t already have.

I know, right?

No word on pricing if you didn’t own all of the stuff already.

If I hear about that, I’ll let you know.

One thing I am concerned about (and anybody at Portal, if you read this, please say something about it?) is that there is no mention of asynchronous online play. The original Neuroshima Hex app had wonderful asynchronous play until it finally went kaput as the app wasn’t updated.

Previous Portal digital games, like Tides of Time (which really called for it) don’t have asynchronous play, so I am a bit concerned.

It would be nice to have those fears alleviated.

However, other than that, this is amazing, and kudos to Portal Games for taking care of people that supported their game previously, even though the app itself wasn’t technically Portal’s.

I tip my hat to you.

I can’t wait to play this online!

Assuming asynchronous works, of course.